One of my realizations from moving left of liberal was that the US only looks incompetent if you believe it's a democracy. From a materialist POV the American Empire is quite competent at propaganda, overthrowing socialist governments, and broadly furthering the interests of the MIC.
It's still incompetent, they only manage to do those things with massive amounts of funding and an incredible power imbalance. That's why they can't beat China.
I mostly agree. In that case instead of competence, use "ability", which comes from a mixture of competence, funding, and power. The US has great (but not always supreme) ability.
Someone was able to do 9/11---because it happened. IMHO you can't exclude those with some of the greatest ability and the largest motive. In my case, I refused to truly consider it for a long time until I realized it was an emotional (rather than intellectual) hangup.
That's a fair point. I think hanlon's razor is more for the person right in front of you. Like, your burger sucks at a restaurant, it's more likely the chef sucks or screwed up then that they hate you in particular. Or if your Healthcare sucks, it's not because the clerk you filed with doesn't want you treated, it's that the company is bad at its stated purpose.
Imagine thinking the US is competent enough to do 9/11 without 100's of contractors bragging about it on internet forums.
One of my realizations from moving left of liberal was that the US only looks incompetent if you believe it's a democracy. From a materialist POV the American Empire is quite competent at propaganda, overthrowing socialist governments, and broadly furthering the interests of the MIC.
As King Noam likes to say, it's operating "precisely as intended."
It's still incompetent, they only manage to do those things with massive amounts of funding and an incredible power imbalance. That's why they can't beat China.
I mostly agree. In that case instead of competence, use "ability", which comes from a mixture of competence, funding, and power. The US has great (but not always supreme) ability.
Someone was able to do 9/11---because it happened. IMHO you can't exclude those with some of the greatest ability and the largest motive. In my case, I refused to truly consider it for a long time until I realized it was an emotional (rather than intellectual) hangup.
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That's a fair point. I think hanlon's razor is more for the person right in front of you. Like, your burger sucks at a restaurant, it's more likely the chef sucks or screwed up then that they hate you in particular. Or if your Healthcare sucks, it's not because the clerk you filed with doesn't want you treated, it's that the company is bad at its stated purpose.
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What's MIC?
Military Industrial Complex
Incredibly well said dude. I think that was the experience of a LOT of us